After about 2 years of thinking about it I finally decided to enroll with Open Colleges and try and get it done before Tammy's studio opens. I did a bit of research and while my first preference was Tafe, the hours and flexibility didn't fit in with working full time. I chose Open Colleges after looking into a few of the online places and although at first I was a bit skeptical about studying such a practical thing online, I was really impressed and happy with the course.
Online study was quite challenging since you completely have to self motivate but I managed to get into a good routine where I was doing study and working on assignments for at least an hour a day. I managed to finish the course in 5 months (Nov 2015 - Mar 16) which was my original aim to fit in with Tammy's predicted studio date which has since been a bit delayed. I have to say that I completely underestimated how hard the course would be, and it took a lot of hard work and effort to finish it in this time.
I think with everything like this you can put as much effort as you want into it, but since I tend to get obsessed with things I start I think I probably took it a lot further than I had to. I really learned a lot during the course and I have already modified my existing class plans based on what I've learned.
The work experience component was enjoyable, but lets be honest, it was also quite brutal. 80 hours of unpaid work experience is a very long time when you're working full time, finishing the written component of a course, and trying to keep on track of your own training. I worked under a wonderful team at Jetts and learned so much from the personal trainers there, but since not all of it was practical for my field of interest I'd say it was probably not as useful as Open Colleges intended it to be. It was also a shame that I couldn't use my 4 years of teaching classes as part of my practical work experience since that would have made the whole process a lot less exhausting. My favourite part of the work experience was taking the free HIIT classes that ran 2 time a week and seeing the improvements that the regular clients made in the short period of time that I worked with them, so cool!
I can't wait to put this to good use when Tammy finally opens up, fingers crossed now for June!
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